Hmm, it looks like retro games or at least, throwbacks, have found a new home in the form of Nintendo’s WiiWare. The proof is in the pudding, with the recent release of Contra Rebirth joining the likes of Gradius ReBirth, Star Soldier R and Adventure Island in making the platform the home of retro throwbacks.

Check out the following press release for Konami regarding the release of Contra Rebirth for Nintendo WiiWare, and also be sure to stay for the screenshots and the the trailer, right here at Nine Over Ten 9/10:

KONAMI ANNOUNCES CONTRA REBIRTH NOW AVAILABLE FOR NINTENDO WIIWARE™

Players Are Tasked With Saving the Planet in Action-Packed 2D Side Scrolling Adventure

Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. today announced that Contra Rebirth is now available for Nintendo WiiWare™. With a storyline based on the classic Contra theme, players can now follow the adventures of the timeless characters and experience fast-paced gameplay in an all-new downloadable format.

In Contra Rebirth, players travel back in time to Central America in 1973, where they are met with the threat of Chief Salamander and his Neo-Salamander Force who have taken over the Shizuoka ruins on the Yucatan Peninsula. While Salamander and his minions plan the destruction of all the “Contra” on Earth, the Galactic President calls upon Lance Bean, a member of the elite “Contra” warriors, only to find that he has gone missing.

To help in the battle against evil, Bill Rizer and Genbei Yagyu are enlisted to save the planet. Using their classic Contra fire-power including the popular spreadshot, Bill and Genbei must defeat the Neo-Salamander army before all is lost.

In this trail-blazing adventure that pioneered the run n’ gun genre, gamers are able to work together using two player local co-op gameplay to save the alien-invaded planet. The action-packed title also features two unlockable characters and retro 2D side scrolling action for both old and new Contra fans alike.

Contra Rebirth is now available for purchase for 1000 points on Nintendo WiiWare.

I put my new Madcatz Street Fighter IV Arcade Stick through its paces today, ironically with The King of Fighters XII. And what a world of difference it made compared to playing with a normal gamepad.

First up, the arcade stick has decent real estate to rest my hands on, making it a very comfortable experience using it, even over an extended period of time. I don’t claim to be an expert on arcade sticks, and this being the first time I actually own one, but I must say that this thing is very responsive.

I’ve read that this arcade stick is upgradeable, and you can actually swap the buttons and joystick with their respective SANWA counterparts. Looks like that’s a viable project that I intend to perform within the next couple of months.

Back to the review. I do have some minor gripes about the SFIV Arcade Stick. It’s a little noisy, especially the joystick. It’s also a little light, and I wished there were better rubber grips to hold this thing down in a vigorous session of KOF XII.

But then again, these are just minor stuff that really don’t do much at all to detract from the entire experience of using the stick. At half price, this is pretty much the bargain of the year for video game related stuff (and the cool decal practically makes it the best looking one too).

The thing about finishing inFAMOUS the first time around, is that it becomes too easy the second time, despite starting from scratch (and I’m playing as the bad guy now, not Mr. Goodie-Two-Shoes) and the game upgrading the difficulty to hard.

It’s probably due to the fact that I’ve gotten used to the controls, and it’s more like twitch gaming now. Twitch here, headshot, twitch there, headshot. In fact, the majority of kills after restarting the game (and playing as the bad guy) were due to headshots. Not bad for a guy who was pretty n00b at analog stick controls a few months back.

VATS? Who needs you anymore?! 🙂 Anyways, what was your second playthrough of inFAMOUS like? I’ve got a confession to make, I actually fell asleep.

The people who brought you Flick Fishing for the iPhone, which happens to be a favourite of mine, are busy with their upcoming 3D space trading and conquest game for the iPhone, Warpgate.

So much so that I’m beginning to suspect that these guys don’t have time to even name the planets in the game, and will need your help in naming four of them!

Check out the press release below for details on this contest and a chance to have your planet featured in-game in Warpgate!

Freeverse Reveals Winner of First Warpgate “Name A Planet” Contest; Extends Contest to Four More Planets

BROOKLYN, NY – Sept. 8, 2009 – Freeverse is pleased to announce the winner of the Warpgate “Name a Planet” contest, Shermy808, for their planet, “Hibernicus, inhabited by a bear-like species who make for terrible space pilots.” Due to the enormous popularity of the contest, Freeverse will be extending the contest to allow four more winners to name their own planet in the game!

The contest extension will allow four more winners to name and describe a planet in the upcoming iPhone game Warpgate, a 3D space trading and conquest game where players can master the galactic commodities market, battle space pirates, and meet several friendly and hostile alien species. In addition to ground-breaking graphics and unbounded gameplay, it features a fluid and ever-changing economy, six warring factions, full arsenal of weapons including lasers, missiles, shields and beams.

This is all spread over a galaxy of more than 75 planets and space stations in 32 star systems. Which will be yours? Enter today to win!

To enter simply follow Freeverse on Twitter, and tweet your submission with your entry, @freeverse or the word #warpgate somewhere in the Tweet! The new winners will be announced on October 1st, 2009 on https://twitter.com/freeverse and will be seen in-game along with Shermy808’s planet, Hibernicus, when the game is released!

What an odd-ball evening on satellite TV yesterday. I watched, for the first time, an episode of Batman: The Brave and The Bold. It’s probably the campiest Batman on the TV screen since Adam West’s rendition of the superhero.

Pretty much everyone in the cartoon show (even his sensei) was commenting on how silly Batman looked in his get-up. Anyways, The Brave and The Bold is pretty fun to watch and good for a few laughs.

Next up on the list of campy stuff was Army of Darkness, which I caught mid-way after watching Batman. Sam Raini should continue making campy horror movies like this. Who would emerge tops from a “Bruce Campbell versus the undead” grudge match? Bruce Campbell of course! No contest!

When I was a kid, I studied music and played the electronic organ for quite a number of years. One of the things that I used to do during the music exam was to compose a piece and then play it there and then.

Normally, the piece would sound ok, but for a tone-deaf person like me, it would be off in more than one place and I did get marks deducted for that.

In any case, ZOOZBeat PRO allows just about anybody to flex their musical composition skills on the iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s more of a music application then a game whereby you can string a bunch of beats to form a song.

The beats consist of notes played by a variety of instruments. ZOOZBeat PRO is pretty generous here, with instruments such as the piano, bass guitar, maracas, snare drum, scratch pad, hihat and many more, depending on the type of beat that you selected.

The fun and probably most pivotal part of ZOOZBeat PRO comes when you are laying down the notes. Being a little rusty, I opted at use the gesture-based mode. Basically the harder you shake your iPhone, the higher the note. Check out what I created:

Tilting the iPhone enables access to what I call the “PRO” mode. Basically, you’ll see your notes laid out on a piano-score. While this allows you to edit your notes very accurately, it doesn’t really act like a piano score.

In my case, I felt that it was missing the middle notes. Playing a scale is almost impossible here, and you can forget about the sharps and flats. And while some instruments allow you to hold a note longer than a beat, this is missing for the piano instrument.

Nerfed “Pro” mode aside, ZOOZBeat Pro has plenty of potential. With the ability to upload beats (yeah baby!), who knows, you might get noticed as the next big beat meister!

ZOOZBeat Pro is available on the iPhone/iPod Touch and you can purchase and download it from the App Store for just USD 4.99. Click here for details.

I did something the other day; I added the words Achievement Unlocked (this term is an Xbox 360 exclusive) and inFAMOUS (this is a Sony PS3 exclusive game) in the title of a post, and wah laa, instant flame from Xbox 360 fan-boys. Click here to read the post.

Spontaneous combustion of heretical fan-boys (the “fan” in fan-boys already indicate that they are fanatics..you know, Al-Qaeda kind of fanatic) aside, I do have my reasons for the title. It was simply because I managed to finish a game (something that I don’t do often these days), and hence, it was a personal achievement.

And somehow expecting some trouble, I did put a disclaimer.

So I don’t see anything wrong with putting up the words Achievement Unlocked (it does sound cool, doesn’t it, see….Xbox 360 does rock after all). But fan-boys being fan-boys, being anal over certain words and terms is pretty much normal behaviour, and I don’t think the previous sentence would appeal to their, umm, better, nature.

I wonder would it be a worthy sacrifice to their altar of 3ROD and Halo (and perhaps Forza), if I were to rename the article to “Personal Achievement Unlocked: Finished inFAMOUS”. But then again, bah, it’s my blog, so go cry to your mommies.

So, to the following bunch of ‘tards, it would be helpful to learn how to read. And that means reading whole passages of text. I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it. But anyways, here’s to your 30 seconds of fame. Cheers!

P/S: No hard feeling boys, it’s the Internet. Go get some exercise or something. It does wonders to the brain.

Disclaimer: I would like to categorize this post under sarcasm, I’ve got nothing against the 360 (it was my first choice, but then came the 3ROD and with no official support from Microsoft Malaysia, I went for the PS3). I would probably get the 360 at the end of the year, or the starting the next since the latest version doesn’t seem to come with the 3ROD stigma. However, I do hate fan-boys, irrespective of their consoles. So now you know 🙂

Malaysians are a pretty lucky bunch. Since Sony Malaysia has been dragging it’s feet in bringing in the all new PS3 Slim console, the console has been made available in the market thanks to parallel importers.

Now, these are Hong Kong sets, and will most likely be NOT covered by Sony Malaysia in terms of warranty once the new console is available officially in Malaysia. Anyways, not many people care about this, and you can get one of these babies for RM 1200 (~USD 339).

The console package consists of the console (120 GB version), 1 DualShock 3 controller, 1 AV Cable, 1 USB Cable, 1 AC Power Cord and manual. Some retailers are throwing in games with the package for an additional RM 80 ~ RM 100.

Need to find out where to buy these new, slimmer toaster ovens, I mean PS3s? Check out Nine Over Ten 9/10’s map guide (click here) or the Lowyat.net forums (click here).

I installed the latest Sony PS3 firmware (3.0) yesterday, and I thought there was something wrong with my system since the XMB looked…bigger. Anyways, it’s just one of several enhancements put in with the new firmware.

Other changes include an upgrade Friend List UI and preview tabs of sorts for the PSN Store and the What’s New section. I find both of them annoying, and the PSN Store even has a shortcut on both the Game and Video categories. I thought those sections are supposed to show only my stuff.

Anyways, you can now view the time, number of messages received and how many friends are online on the upgraded mini menu on the top right corner of the screen. I guess this update is more on how information is conveyed to the user.

If you haven’t upgraded yet, you can find the new firmware and all the changes it entails over at https://asia.playstation.com/my/en/support/osDetail/71836. Personally I prefer to download the firmware to a USB thumbdrive (flash drive) and then use it to update my PS3. It’s just faster that way.